Agriculture

FA Priday and Sons

The ongoing support provided by Pirtek’s Gloucester Hose Centre is helping safeguard production for local agricultural contractor, FA Priday and Sons Ltd.

Gloucester-based agricultural contractor FA Priday and Sons Ltd is safeguarding its productivity and profitability by using Pirtek Gloucester to handle all its on-site emergency hydraulic hose replacements. The company, which runs a broad range of equipment for both internal and contracting applications, has been a Pirtek Gloucester customer for more than 8 years.

Unusual Fittings

Founded by Fred Priday in 1966, Priday currently employs 11 people and operates a full range of agricultural and hire equipment including Claas Combines, JCB wheeled loaders and telehandlers, and Takeuchi mini excavators. The company offers a year-round contracting service, commencing in February with ploughing and cultivating to drilling and silaging, running through to combining and baling in the summer months to groundworks, drainage and hedge cutting in the winter. With such a wide range of equipment, Priday needs speedy access to a wide range of spare parts at very short notice.

“We have some excellent John Deere tractors but they have one annoying component; flush-fitting flat faced hose ends If one of these fails, we could be facing a 24-hour delay because they are such weird fixings,” explains Richard Priday, son of founder Fred. “But I’ll guarantee if we call Pirtek Gloucester, they will replace the hose and have the machine working within the hour.”

Rapid Response

With more than 100 agricultural customers including many that use the company’s trade counter service, Pirtek Gloucester’s Franchisee Jason Woods recognises the specific needs of the agricultural sector.

“Thanks to the notoriously unpredictable British weather, our agricultural customers have to make maximum use of every hour of available daylight,” Woods asserts. “In particular, agricultural contractors simply cannot afford unplanned equipment downtime.”

This view is echoed by Richard Priday. “Our working windows can be incredibly tight. Last year we had all the harvesting done by the end of August. Due to the weather this year, it was the end of September. We have to take advantage of every fine day and there is little point arriving on site and then having to wait 24 hours to replace a burst hose,” Richard Priday concludes. “We have been offered equipment to repair our own hoses but I can’t imagine how many components we would have to carry, Pirtek give us excellent, fast and reliable service so we’ll leave our hose replacements to the experts.”

“Pirtek give us excellent, fast, and reliable service, so we leave all our hose replacements to the experts”
One of Richard Priday’s excellent John Deere tractors receiving instant support from Pirtek Gloucester.